A Case Study About Healthcare Leadership

A Case Study About Healthcare Leadership Effective leadership is essential in health care organisations as in other organisations. It is necessary for driving innovation, effective patient care, patient safety, improving working within clinical teams, sorting out issues within emergency context and other aspects necessary for effective and efficient running of healthcare organisations. Transformational leadership has often been prescribed as the ‘gold standard’ of healthcare leadership(Gopee and Galloway 2009).This essay sets out to: briefly discuss the concept of leadership; highlight why leadership is important in healthcare; make a distinction between the closely-related concepts of leadership and management; briefly highlight how power relates to leadership; describe some leadership approaches applicable within the context of healthcare organisations; describe leadership styles visible in healthcare; present a case study set in a teaching hospital practice setting in Africa ; critically assess the leadersh ip approaches operating within the setting and its effect on organisational performance ;and make recommendations on improving leadership practice within the specified setting. What is leadership? Leadership can be defined as â€Å"the ability of an individual to influence a group of people to achieve a goal(Bryman 1992).It is also noted that ‘leadership can have four possible meanings, namely: the activity of leading; the body of people who lead a group; the status of the leader; and the ability to lead'(Gopee and Galloway 2009). Kouzes and Posner (2007) suggest some characteristics of an effective leader namely to: be more effective in meeting job-related demands; be more successful in representing their units in upper management; create higher performing teams; foster renewed loyalty and commitment; increase motivational levels and willingness to work hard; and possess high degree of personal integrity. Why leadership in healthcare? Effective leadership and management has been found to contribute to efficiency of health care services, performance (McColl-Kennedy and Anderson 2002) and satisfaction of staff employed within them.(Bradley and Alimo-Metcalfe 2008) researched the causal relationship between leadership behaviours and the performance and productivity of staff and found that ‘engaging leadership’ improved employee engagement and performance. (Morrison, Jones et al. 1997) studied the relationship between leadership style, empowerment, and job satisfaction on nursing staff at a regional medical centre. They used Bass’s Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire to measure leadership style, items from Spreitzer’s Psychological Empowerment instrument to measure empowerment, and the Warr, Cook, and Wall’s job satisfaction questionnaire to measure job satisfaction. The authors found that both transformational and transactional leadership were positively associated with job satisfaction. Some other researchers reported t hat good leadership skills impacted on patient safety and quality of care (Corrigan, Lickey et al. 2000; Firth-Cozens and Mowbray 2001; Mohr, Abelson et al. 2002).Furthermore, leadership skills are essential in the world of public health policy and leadership is one of the core competencies required of public health trainees(Faculty of Public Health 2010). Leadership versus management Relevant to this discourse is making a distinction between leadership and management. They are two similar but distinct concepts. Management is seen as seeking order and maintaining stability while leadership is seen as seeking adaptive and constructive change. Leadership in the healthcare context aims to influence practitioners towards the achievement of the common goal of quality patient care. On the other hand, management as a process coordinates and directs the activities of an organisation to ensure it achieves its set objectives. Management ensures healthcare resources (human such as doctors, nur ses and clerical staff and non-human resources like medical devices and consumables) are utilised in an efficient way whilst delivering effective healthcare service(Gopee and Galloway 2009). However, leadership is known to be complementary to management (Kotter 1999; Zaleznik 2004).